May’s Heart Hero of The Month

by, George’s Loving Parents

George’s story starts about 5.5 years ago. My husband and I were so excited to start trying for a baby. A year passed with no luck. We saw a doctor who diagnosed me with fertility issues and said that it wouldn’t be possible to conceive without IVF. We didn’t have the funds for that so we continued to hope for a miracle.

After 4.5 years of trying that little miracle happened. We had no complications. No worries.

We excitedly went to our 20-week anatomy scan expecting to leave with news of the sex of our baby and plan a Christmas gender reveal. As soon as she started the ultrasound we knew he was a boy. After that, she kept taking pictures of his heart. Different angles. No words were spoken. I started to tense up. She left and came back with two doctors. I immediately started crying. I knew something was wrong.

They told us that his heart was located on the right side of his body and with that can come many complications but that they didn’t have a full diagnosis yet. All we knew was that they said “heterotaxy”. Never Google any diagnosis. It leads to depressing and hopeless situations. Four weeks later we were able to see a specialist. My husband had a list of questions. I had one. After the ultrasound, I asked him the only thing I wanted to know: “will my baby survive?” He said as long as the baby’s brain is good, we can fix heart stuff. They ordered an amniocentesis to rule out a few syndromes that would make him incompatible with life. We knew there was a chance that we would have to decide whether we donated his usable organs or not. Our miracle baby may not even survive. At 30 weeks we finally received the news that George was a healthy baby with only heart defects. He was diagnosed in utero with DTGA, dextrocardia, heterotaxy, and VSD. They prepped us on how delivery would go and what we should expect. They told me that he would be born blue and dying. That immediately after birth he would be taken to the NICU to have his first heart procedure. That he would be flown to a larger hospital for his first open-heart surgery 5 days after birth. This is what we were prepared for.

On May 7th George was born with the loudest baby scream I have ever heard. He was pink and his vitals were near perfect. I was able to meet him and talk to him and touch him. My husband was allowed to cut the cord and hold our firstborn baby. Our miracle. He was taken to the NICU for observations and scans. He was found to have LTGA (instead of DTGA), dextrocardia, heterotaxy, VSD, and pulmonary stenosis. Even with all this, he was on no interventions. No oxygen. No medicine. Nothing. We were released from the NICU on Mother’s Day just 5 days after birth, the day we were supposed to be handing him over to a surgeon for his first open-heart surgery. My first Mother’s Day and here I was taking sweet baby George home. Not to a hospital but to the place we had so perfectly prepared for him.

I’ll never forget the words “we have a pulse”.

They stabilized him. I couldn’t leave his side. I would panic when I had to go to the cafeteria or even to shower. I was always hurrying to get back.

Eight days after surgery George was released from the hospital. It was surreal. We were going home. And that is where we stayed until December.

We knew his second and biggest surgery was coming up. We were just waiting for his heart to tell us when. Surgery was scheduled for December 19. 2019 at only 7 months old. After 8 hours the surgeon met with us. While we sat talking to him, he was called back due to George having arrhythmias. The surgeon did an emergency cath and found an issue with the coronary he didn’t even operate on. So they reopened his chest and did a second procedure. 13.5 hours of surgery. 323 minutes on bypass. 10 days post-op we were discharged.

He’s 9 months old now. He is a crazy and hyper little boy. He loves his mamma, his daddy, and his puppies. He is thriving. You would never guess he’s been where he’s been. We know that the future will hold another surgery but right now we are only focused on the here and now. We celebrate each milestone that George has met. We smile each morning as our sweet boy wakes up to conquer another day.

This boy proved our first doctor wrong when they said we wouldn’t conceive. He was born thriving when they expected otherwise. He died and was resuscitated. He’s had his chest closed after surgery only to have it opened minutes later. George is tough. We remind him daily that he has a great big story to tell this world.

God has proven His mighty power with this sweet boy. George is a hero and we have been blessed to be chosen to be his parents.